These are details for a focus session on the CIVIC Data Library. For more information on the library, visit the CIVIC Library Hub
"(Data are) the products of unequal social relations, and this context is essential for conducting accurate, ethical analysis." – Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio & Lauren Klein
There's a myriad of ways that unequal social relations are expressed in datasets. Beyond provenance & lineage, what justice-oriented inquiries are most valuable in the context of structured context?
To incorporate justice-oriented information into a structured context schema requires prioritizing what inquiries to pursue, finding a common approach for a shared set of inquiries, and structuring the artifacts and results of those inquiries in a consistent way.
This session aims to define the focus & scope for the what, how, who, and why of justice-oriented inquiries that will be a part of the first version of CIVIC Data Library's structured context process & schema. This will build off of the work done by the initial Structured Context Cohort, and inform immediate future sessions focused on social justice
Systemic injustice: context on how systems outside the dataset shape the information the dataset attempts to capture
Data-specific distortions: context on how the data systems of counting, classification, representation, skew, and omission shape what's represented in the dataset
Data constituent insight: context drawn from the lived experience of the marginalized groups within the dataset